Author Archives: Dennis

Body-Hacking: The Search for Cyborgs

Posted on November 13, 2016 | 1 comment

Tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications have slowly become the norm in everyday society. Items such as earrings have even become standards in fashion. Such modifications have been proven over time to be harmless to the human body, but recently a small association of body modding enthusiasts have taken it to the next level.

In risk of causing harm to their own bodies, these curious experimenters have began to incorporate different gadgets into their bodies in order to add more function to the human body. From sensing the north pole to seeing in the dark, these curious individuals seek to find ways to integrate technology into themselves.

Cool side effects of inserting a magnet into your finger includes neat party tricks. (Image courtesy of Dann Berg)

Using themselves as guinea pigs, the researchers (also known as grinders)have slowly and steadily in progress. From the initial stages of inserting magnets into their hands to feel for electronic signals, they have now been able to do much more miraculous things such as planting a solar panel under their skin as well as inject a special chlorophyll mixture into their eyes to give themselves temporary increased night vision.

Body-hacker Gabriel Licina after being treated with a night-vision enhancing called Chlorin e6. (Image courtesy of Science.Mic)

While grinders have been largely successful in the research thus far, they have not been able to fully test for safety considerations, but it seems to be a price that they are willing to take. Many tests are done in private locations with limited safety and sanitation abilities, but these conditions do not seem to deter the enthusiasts. In fact, the ever-growing community has planned a convention in 2017 for fellow grinders to meet and discuss their results.

By risking themselves to propel science forward, perhaps a cyborg future isn’t as far as it seems.

 

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-Dennis Lin

 

 

Reference:

9 Crazy Body Hacks that Give You Superhuman Powers. Popular Science. Sept. 8, 2015. http://www.popsci.com/9-body-hacks-superhuman-powers (Accessed Nov 11, 2016)

Body-hackers: the people who turn themselves into cyborgs. The Guardian. Aug. 15, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/aug/14/body-hackers-the-people-who-turn-themselves-into-cyborgs (Accessed Nov 12, 2016)

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Groundbreaking coffee grounds: How your morning wake up call is more than just a beverage.

Posted on October 24, 2016 | 6 comments

You wake up in the morning feeling groggy and your limbs seem to not want to listen to your instructions. You’re sure that you’ve somehow lost a cone cell type somehow in your eyes, because the world seems to be a grey blur. Stumbling to the kitchen, you manage to go through the motions and end up with your favourite cup of joe. As you sip at it, the world starts up again. Birds are singing, children are laughing, and all is finally right with the world.

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How do you like your coffee? (Image provided by Wikimedia Commons.)

Recent studies have shown that coffee has even more miracle effects to offer: scientists were recently able to create foam filters out of leftover coffee grounds, which have the capability of filtering out harmful heavy metals from drinking water. These chemicals include metals such as lead and mercury.

 

Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology have created a foam that is 60% coffee grounds and 40% of a silicone elastomer, which is a chemical compound that gives the foam some elasticity.

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The resulting foam material. (Image provided by American Chemical Society)

This foam has quite a dramatic effect when used in water filtration; Experiments show that 67% of lead ions can be removed just by running the water through the foam, and up to 99% of lead and mercury ions can be filtered if the water is allowed to sit in the foam for 30 hours.

 

This inexpensive and reliable material could help us reduce wastes, as it will provide a use for all of the coffee grounds that are thrown out everyday, as well as help increase the availability of clean water in areas that desperately need it, such as developing countries or areas in crisis, such as Flit, Michigan’s water contamination problem.

 

The paper was just released September 1st, 2016, so there has not been enough time for the material to be introduced and used in the real world. However, this discovery is definitely the start of a great change, and it will surely leave a great impact on the world as an ecofriendly way of treating water.

Dennis Lin, Undergraduate Chemistry Student

 

References:

  1. Asmita A. Chavan, Javier Pinto, Ioannis Liakos, Ilker S. Bayer, Simone Lauciello, Athanassia Athanassiou, Despina Fragouli.Spent Coffee Bioelastomeric Composite Foams for the Removal of Pb2 and Hg2 from Water. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 2016; DOI:10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b01098

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Graphene Batteries: A Better Alternative

Posted on October 3, 2016 | 1 comment

There’s been a lot of fuss recently regarding the new phones. The Samsung Note 7 and the iPhone 7, particularly, seem to exhibit a major flaw: They tend to explode. Well, exploding may be overstating the actual situation, as most of the time they just catch on fire, but it is still quite a major inconvenience.

So why is this happening? Its not like lithium-ion batteries are a new technology, right?

Well, it is true that companies have been using these batteries for a long time now, but the problem has to do with how companies have began to stretch out the limits of the design in order to satisfy its customers.

The lithium-ion batteries work like this:

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Simplified diagram of a Lithium-ion battery. (Image courtesy of Sustainable-nano.)

Where the solution inside the battery helps move the electric charge in and out of the battery.

This these batteries, there are certain limits such as size and charge that dictate the safety and stability of the battery. Therefore, when the companies begin to push the limits of the battery design so that they can give a longer charge, and use less space. What this creates is a very unstable battery, and a very unhappy customer.

So what can we do to fix this?

Meet the Graphene battery.

Graphene is a material that has many wonderful properties. It’s lightweight, conducts electricity extremely well, and is incredibly stable, forming a sturdy yet flexible material. The best part is: it is found in everyday items such as pencils and charcoal, so it won’t be a limited resource either.

Graphene batteries work by using layers of graphene to act as the plates that move electricity in and out of the battery. By using graphene instead of lithium or other metal plates, we fix two major problems:

  1. Graphene holds a much larger amount of charge, and is able to charge up in just a fraction of the time. Pictured below is the G-King graphene battery. At the size of a regular smartphone, it holds more than 3 times the charge of a regular phone battery. Best of all, it can be fully charged in fifteen minutes.

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    The G-King, in all its glory. (Image courtesy of Graphene-info.)

  2. Since graphene is so safe and flexible, it opens up new venues of battery design. Graphene batteries are made in all sorts of shapes and sizes, enabling batteries in all sorts of convenient places.

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    A bag strap with an attached graphene battery inside as a easy to use recharging station. (Image courtesy of Graphene-info.)

Although most graphene products are still under development, expect to see some great results coming through the next couple of years. I, for one, will be sure to pick these up as soon as they hit the general market. In the meantime, you can watch this video about the unveiling of the G-King battery.

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-Dennis Lin, Undergrad Chemistry

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